


What Should I Do?

by dyingpoet



Series: Sprace one shots [40]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Era, M/M, race has abandonment issues u didnt hear it from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-17 16:57:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18102644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyingpoet/pseuds/dyingpoet
Summary: Spot and Race have two real meetings throughout the duration of the strike





	What Should I Do?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elder_Higgins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elder_Higgins/gifts).



> based on a prompt given to me by @Elder_Higgins !!!! ty and i hope u like it!!!

Spot had heard the news about Manhattan by the time the sun went down, and he wasn’t surprised at all; they had lost the first bit of their little strike. Call it his fault for not wanting to get involved, as he was sure some people were, but he’d seen what he wanted to see, and now maybe some things would change. He had to think bigger picture with something like that, something where kids could get hurt. 

But yeah, he had the feeling some people weren’t going to take it the same way he would. 

“Spot?”

Pulling his arm away from where it was draped over his eyes, Spot looked up from his bed to see Ashes leaning in the doorway. He was biting his nail and glancing behind him, nervous as Spot had ever seen him, and sitting up, Spot looked at him expectantly. 

“Yeah?”

Ashes looked behind him again and shifted so that he was blocking the door a bit less. “Racetrack from Manhattan’s here.”

Before Spot could reply, the kid himself pushed past Ashes, sort of a feat actually considering the guy probably had twenty pounds of muscle on him, and walked quickly, angrily, toward Spot.  

Spot didn’t sit up, mostly because Ashes was still watching, but kept a calm face while Race started to get in it. “You can go, Ash.”

The door sounded shut and Race stopped short in front of Spot. He wasn’t beaten all that bad, a black eye and a split lip, but Spot could see the anger flaring up in his breathing. “Where the fuck were you?” 

Propping himself up on his elbows, Spot shrugged, keeping the facade up even though he knew Race saw through it. “Here, Racer.”

“Yeah, we all know that,” Race said, balling his fists. “We lost at the strike this mornin’, real  _ bad  _ too, they hauled Crutch off.”

That actually sent guilt crawling up Spot’s spine, more or less because it showed exactly why he hadn’t brought any of his kids there in the first place, but it showed on his face nonetheless. 

“Yeah, ya should feel bad,” Race said, and his voice broke a little. “It  _ was _ bad, we had nobody else, but I thought you would’a shown, of all people.”

Spot sat up once Race started to shake, both from anger and fear if he could take a guess, and raked a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry ‘bout Crutch, and anybody else that got roughed up, but I had my reasons, Race-”

“Bull,” Race snapped, though it was weak. He sat down on the end of the bed and put his head in his hands, gripping his hair. “Jack’s all messed up over Crutchie, and he has been disappearin’ for longer and longer without a word, and I don’t know how ta be in  _ charge _ , Spotty.”

He got quiet after that and Spot wrung his hands, not quite sure what to do. He did have his reasons, and all of them were in the bunk room right now, but he didn’t know stuff was that bad over in Manhattan. 

Carefully, he moved to sit next to Race and put a hand on his shoulder slowly. “Hey, I didn’t know ‘bout all’a that.”

Race shook off Spot’s hand and took a deep breath before looking at him again. “Yeah well, not like you was there to see any of it.”

Spot bit back his sigh and clawed his hands into the thin bed sheet; he felt bad for Race but he knew he wasn’t to blame here. Jack would’ve known that too, had he been here. 

“I got kids too, y’know, just like you and just like Jack, and I ain’t tryin’ to get them busted up if it ain’t serious.”

He saw Race’s shoulders drop, and he nodded, eyes down. “Yeah, Jack said after it happened. Said it was  _ fair _ .”

The silence between them grew for a while longer and Spot didn’t take his eyes off Race. What he said was fair, and Race knew that, so he was starting to think this was a little less about the strike and a little more about Jack. 

“I don’t wanna take over, Spot,” Race bit out finally, voice in a whisper. “I-I don’t know what to do, and everybody over there thinks I do and I just  _ can’t- _ ”

His voice cracked and Spot moved forward again, Race leaning into the touch instead of pulling away this time. There wasn’t any sound but uneven breathing, Race didn’t cry in front of anyone if he could help it, and Spot eventually coaxed him into a makeshift hug. Race more or less leaning into him and shaking from either exhaustion or the effort to keep from crying, and Spot whispering softly to him in Spanish. He didn’t know what Spot was saying, but it didn’t matter, he didn’t need to. He just needed someone there, always had.

* * *

 

“Fuck him.”

Race’s sharp declaration rang through the small, and admittedly ragged looking group of boys like a shot. From the corner of Spot’s eye he saw some of the Brooklyn boys looking at him, unsure of how to move forward if they weren’t on their own turf. Hell, this might be Race’s turf now, with things going how they were. 

“Race, maybe he ain’t-”

“No,” Race barked, cutting Mush off, and strangely choosing to look at Spot instead of his own kids. “Jack chose his side, and it ain’t with us anymore,  _ fuck _ him.”

There wasn’t any sort of rousing support from the Manhattan kids, and definitely not from Brooklyn’s, but Spot didn’t think Race cared about any of them in that second anyway. He stormed off before any sides could be taken or arguments could be made, and everyone stood in silence for a second. 

There was a physical tension in the air, and without any sort of clear leader, Spot gained the eyes of the Manhattan kids so that everyone was looking at him for some sort of direction. 

Squaring his shoulders, Spot looked at Mush since he probably fell just below Race in their chain of command. “Can ya take my boys back to lodgin’ with you?”

He’d phrased it as a question so as to not raise any hairs; there wasn’t a clear leader of the Manhattan kids right now, but it sure as hell wasn’t going to turn into him. 

Mush nodded carefully and then looked off in the direction Race had stormed off in. “Yeah, what about him?”

“I got it,” Spot said, and feeling stares from his own boys on his back he turned around. “I won’t be gone long, head back with Manhattan and get fixed up if ya need it, then we’ll go.”

There was a general sound of agreement and the group started to walk towards lodging, the divide between Brooklyn and Manhattan kids was sharp and defined, more so than usual, and Spot let his gaze linger on it before turning to walk after Race. 

In the back of his mind, he knew there was a lot underneath the anger that Race had thrown out to the rest of the boys. Race only tried to break things like that when he felt broken and Spot  _ knew _ he was broken. The kid who basically raised him turned on him in a second for a bit of money and some new clothes, hell, Spot would be a wreck too.

But Race hadn’t gone far, and Spot saw him in an alley just as the crack of his knuckles hitting brick sounded out, and he picked up the pace.

“Woah, hey, hey, quit it,” Spot said, trying to pull back Race’s hand when he made to hit the wall again. “Race  _ stop- _ ”

“Get off.”

Race turned and shoved Spot back, a wild look in his eyes as he took a shaky step forward. The clenched jaw and balled fists drew Spot back a step and made him tense a bit.

“What? You wanna fight me now, Race?”

He saw Race’s step falter and jumped on it, figuring he might as well try switching tactics. 

“Seriously, do it,” he said and shoved Race’s chest so he took a step back. “If that’s what you wanna do, do it.”

He could physically see the anger fade from Race’s face, replaced with something akin to sadness, but also just tiredness. He looked so  _ tired _ . 

With a pained look on his face, Race unclenched his hands and brought them up to his head to grip his hair, walking over to the opposite wall of the alley and slumping against it. “How could he just  _ do _ that, Spot?”

It seemed like he was genuinely asking, looking at Spot with a weak shrug, but he continued before Spot could jump in.

“He just left all’a us, his family, for what?  _ Money _ ? That was all it would’ve taken all these years for him to just up and go?”

Spot stood across from him not really knowing what to say, Jack’s betrayal at the rally of all places had floored him, too. “I dunno Race.”

Race let out a bitter laugh and shook his head. “Me either.”

“You can’t stay out here though,” Spot said, “not with it like this.”

He knew Race knew that, and the only reason he even said it was because there was nothing else, truly nothing else he could do or say to make Race feel any better because sometimes things were just  _ like _ that. They’d seen it their whole lives growing up the way they did, things happened that were unfair and people left and you just moved on because there was nothing else to do. 

Race knew that, but Spot could still see from his face that it hurt, and so he walked over and put a hand on his shoulder and the second they made eye contact Race’s eyes got glassy and he pulled Spot in for a hug that should’ve lasted longer but couldn’t. 

“Okay, let’s go,” Race said after pulling back. His hands were still shaking a little, but he had a hold on himself for now, because he had to. 

Spot nodded and they started back toward lodging. “And I’ll help ya, with anythin’ over here, if ya need it.”

They both understood that he meant ‘if Jack doesn’t come back’, but neither of them wanted to say it, so Race just bumped his shoulder weakly with Spot’s  “Thanks.”

“I’d say don’t mention it, but that ain’t ever worked before.”

“Shut up.”

And for a second, the air between them felt normal. 

**Author's Note:**

> ayyyy i cant tell if this came out well or nah?? i strangely have no perception of this rn??
> 
> b u t please hmu w kudos/comments if u liked it!!! prompts are always welcome as well :)


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